Weathervane by L. Brent Kington, 1979

Forged and Welded Steel

L. BRENT KINGTON (1934-2013) is credited with re-introducing metal craft as an art form in the United States. Kington was born in 1934 in Topeka, Kansas. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, in 1957. After receiving his master’s degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield, MI, in 1961, Kington began as a Professor of Metalsmithing at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (SIU). During his tenure at SIU, Kington established this country’s only accredited Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts program in blacksmithing. Kington was a founding member and President of the Society of North American Goldsmiths and a former Director of the Artist-Blacksmiths Association of North America (ABANA). His work has been featured in over 370 national and international exhibitions, including 22 solo exhibitions. The traveling exhibition, "L. Brent Kington: Mystic Metalsmith" (2007 - 2011), which followed the artist’s forty-year progression from whimsical cast silver toys to kinetic sculpture, was accompanied by a catalog published by the Illinois State Museum Society. He received numerous awards and honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of American Goldsmiths in 2011. Kington’s influence still resonates today through the hundreds of working artists he taught personally and through those who still make their way through the program he founded at SIU.